South Africa declares electricity emergency

Leading South African gold and platinum mines stopped production today because of a lack of power, as the Government announced emergency steps to deal with outages causing chaos and misery and threatening economic growth.

Neighbours like Botswana and Namibia, which rely heavily on South African energy exports, have also been badly hit by the disruptions in the region’s economic and political powerhouse. The outages have undermined confidence in South Africa, with incidents such as the stranding of hundreds of people on tourism icon Table Mountain because of a power cut gaining international media attention.
“The unprecedented unplanned power outages must now be treated as a national electricity emergency situation that has to be addressed with urgent, vigorous and co-ordinated actions,” Public Enterprise Minister Alec Erwin told journalists after a cabinet meeting today.

“We are viewing the next two years as being critical,” he said, as government officials unveiled measures, including rationing, price hikes and a massive switch to solar power.

The crisis reached a new peak when mining companies including AngloGold, Harmony and Goldfields suspended virtually all operations for fear power cuts would trap workers underground. The stoppage is likely to cost hundreds of millions of rands to one of South Africa’s most important industries and shatter already shaky investor confidence.

Goldfields – whose South African operations produce 7000 ounces per day – said Eskom, the state power utility, had said the disruption could last up to four weeks after Eskom asked mines to cut electricity consumption by 60 per cent per month.

What most angers business and consumers alike is that the rolling blackouts come without warning and so are particularly crippling.

Sydney Mornng Herald